Archive for the ‘Zwickys’ Category

It came to me via Google Alert last week, another creative Zwicky: Denis Zwicky, videographer in Miami. At first, I guessed from his French first name and his fluent but non-native English that he was related to the Zwickys of Wallisellen, outside Zürich, of the Zwicky thread and yarn company and now the Zwicky Areal Facility, an exploration of urban development on the grounds of the thread factory:

(#1) Wallisellen: the old factory and a corner of the new development

Though they’re in German-speaking Switzerland, the younger generations of the family mostly have French names (I’ve written about Joelle); see my 6/27/18 posting “Three Züricher Peter Zwickys”, with a section about “Silk Peter” of the thread company and his four daughters.

But no, far otherwise. As I wrote in yesterday’s posting “Das Wappen”, Denis turned out to be one of the Slavic Zwickys (more in today’s posting “Tsviki from Belarus”). However, I’ll put this personal and family history aside for today, to report on Denis the videographer.

As I noted in yesterday’s posting “Das Wappen”, over the years, Zwickys have moved from Canton Glarus not only to all parts of Switzerland, and from Switzerland north and west in Europe (and then further west to the Americas), but also to the east, all the way to the Slavic lands — specifically, to what is now Ukraine and Russia. And also to what is now Belarus. Where we find the Tsviki — Цвики — family.

Two Belarusian Tsvikis, about 60 years apart in age. One, Leonid, back in Vitebsk, Belarus; the other, Julia (who came to the US a few years ago), in Hallandale Beach FL.

GRP is short for Government Relations Professional (an actual job title — GRPs have their own professional association, even). The title above is an echo of the title of my 4/9/19 posting “The serial entrepreneur of Victoria BC”, referring to Richard Zwicky, whose latest business venture was a cannabis product distribution company. Yes, a cannabis business-connected Zwicky — and today we get another, Dylan Zwicky, of Leonine Public Affairs in Montpelier VT (at the other side of the continent from Victoria BC), the new vice-president of Leonine’s Vermont Government Relations team with the account of the Vermont-based Trace (representing the hemp and cannabis industries).

That would be Richard Zwicky, whose latest business venture was reported on yesterday on the Green Entrepreneur site (supplying cannabis business news). The story came to me as it was picked up by the My San Antonio site, the on-line edition of the San Antonio (TX) Express-News:

(#1) Plena Global founder and CEO Richard Zwicky

“This Entrepreneur Wants to Cure the Sick with High-Quality Cannabis: Richard Zwicky, founder of Plena Global, seeks to standardize production of medicinal cannabis and is investing in Colombia and Peru to achieve it” by Martha Elena Violante on 4/8/19

(After three weeks in the grip of infections, both viral and bacterial, some potentially life-threatening, I’m limping back to life and my blog, with a return, both sentimental and high-tech, to the ancestral home of the Zwickys, the village of Mollis, Canton Glarus, Switzerland.)

I’ll lead with a photo of impossibly picturesque Mollis in the summertime, when it’s green:

Just mounted on the wall I face when I’m at my work table: a digital reproduction of the famous Zwicky Cat poster by Donald Brun (for the Zwicky silk thread company in Wallisellen, Canton Zürich), and a postcard Amanda Walker sent me because it reminded her of the cat Kurniau (what cats say in Estonian — it’s a purr and a meow) from the Zwicky household in Columbus OH many years ago:

(#1)

I’ve posted the Zwicky Cat image before, and about Brun. To come here: about the source of the framed poster (the Wee Blue Coo company in Edinburgh); about the fuller version of the poster, in which a cat may look at a cat icon (as Kurniau seems to be doing above); and about another entertaining Brun poster that I came across while searching for a copy of the two-cat version of the Zwicky silk thread poster.

Cool. That’s the URL for (francophone) Swiss artist Christine Zwicky-Lehmann’s website; it’s as if I had managed to get amz.us. In any case, she came to me via Google Alerts, alerting me to one of her exhibitions back in 2013. From that website:

The town of Wallisellen in Canton Zürich, Switzerland, has just come up again on this blog (in the posting “Three Züricher Peter Zwickys”), as the site of the Zwicky silk-thread company and now the Zwicky construction and real estate company. Two notable things about the place (from its Wikipedia page): the etymology of its name, which looks like a compound (and is), but without easily identifiable parts; and a Swiss German nonsense rhyme that incorporates the town’s name.

A comment on my posting on the 24th, “A Swiss thread in Paris”, about a handsome Zwicky & Co. building on the Boulevard de Sébastopol in Paris:

The building was used as sales office for Zwicky [silk] sewing threads until 2000 and is still owned by the Zwicky Family.

This from one Peter Zwicky, from a Swiss e-mail address. Now, there are great many Peter Zwickys in Switzerland, a fair number just in the Zürich area alone — one of whom (cellist Peter, son of Conrad) I’ve mentioned in passing in postings on this blog. (Zürich is relevant because the headquarters of the Zwicky sewing thread company are in Wallisellen, in Canton Zürich not far (about 5.5 miles) from the city.) I thought this might be that Peter, but no, he’s an executive in the silk-thread Zwicky & Co.

In gathering information about Silk PZ (as opposed to Cello PZ), I came across another notable Züricher PZ, an earthquake specialist in a Zürich firm of consuting engineers — Earthquake PZ for short.

Then, as an unexpected bonus, it turns out that one of Silk PZ’s daughters is the Joëlle Zwicky (of IWC, the International Watch Company in Schaffhausen, Switzerland) that I posted about on 6/6/18, in “Swiss watchmakers”.

The Zwicky silk thread company (of Wallisellen in Canton Zürich, Switzerland), most recently visited in my posting on the 19th, “A Swiss thread”. Apparently, in the 1940s, the company had an office in Paris, with these imposing doors.